had been profound. At an early age he was one of the first civilians of
the time. His manhood being almost contemporary with the great war of
freedom, he had served as a volunteer and at his own expense through
several campaigns, having nearly lost his life in the disastrous attempt
to relieve the siege of Haarlem, and having been so disabled by sickness
and exposure at the heroic leaguer of Leyden as to have been deprived of
the joy of witnessing its triumphant conclusion.

Successfully practising his profession afterwards before the tribunals of
Holland, he had been called at the comparatively early age of twenty-nine
to the important post of Chief Pensionary of Rotterdam. So long as
William the Silent lived, that great prince was all in all to his
country, and Barneveld was proud and happy to be among the most trusted
and assiduous of his counsellors.

When the assassination of William seemed for an instant to strike the
Republic with paralysis, Barneveld was foremost among the statesmen of
Holland to spring forward and help to inspire it with renewed energy.

The almost completed negotiations for conferring the sovereignty, not of
the Confederacy, but of the Province of Holland, upon the Prince had been
abruptly brought to an end by his death. To confer that sovereign
countship on his son Maurice, then a lad of eighteen and a student at
Leyden, would have seemed to many at so terrible a crisis an act of
madness, although Barneveld had been willing to suggest and promote the
scheme. The confederates under his guidance soon hastened however to lay
the sovereignty, and if not the sovereignty, the protectorship, of all
the provinces at the feet first of England and then of France.

Barneveld was at the head of the embassy, and indeed was the